Berlioz was invited to be the honorary president of
a competition for the Orphéon Choral Society which was
held around the time of the inauguration of the statue of Napoleon
Bonaparte on 15 August. The judges were Ambroise Thomas, Gounod,
Bazin, Besozzi, Louis Boïeldieu, Ernest Boulanger, de Raillé, Massé, de
Monter and Jules Simon (Correspondance
Générale VII, p. 706 n. 1, hereafter CG).

Separately, Camille Pal, Berlioz’s brother-in-law, invited
him to attend the ceremony of the inauguration of
Napoleon’s statue. According to CG (VII, p. 689 n. 1), it is possible that Pal did so
knowing that Berlioz had already accepted the Orphéons’ invitation. When
Berlioz received Pal’s letter he was very ill with his intestinal ailment, and also had recently suffered two consecutive serious
accidental falls in Monaco and Nice. He rejected the invitation, as
a letter dated 8 April 1868 to his niece Mathilde
in Grenoble attests (CG no. 3353):

Thank you for your letter, which you did well to send me. I
am still ailing and afflicted with sleepless nights. Sometimes I sleep, but
this is rare. At last I am beginning to feel better, but so slowly that I do
not know when I will be able to see you. That is why I am urging your father,
and with great insistence, to steer away from me the invitation he mentions in
his letter in connection with the statue of Emperor Napoleon. I will not have
recovered and in any case this ceremony will involve making a speech.
But I am not capable of putting one sentence together. Be very careful, I am
not able to carry out this function. Anything they want but not that. But
what they want is not what I would want. Write to me or ask your father to
write about this to reassure me. I need rest and can no longer make even the
slightest effort.

Farewell, I hope this will not be held against me. […]

Berlioz was still very ill when he went to Grenoble, as he mentions in a short letter to
Mathilde’s husband, Jules Masclet, on 7 August (CG no. 3370): ‘I
still have diarrhoea at ten o’clock, but do not worry about me, I will be in
Grenoble on August 15 at eleven o’clock’.
Berlioz left Paris on Friday
evening 14
August in order to attend the ceremonies on the 15th, having signed the
attendance book at the Institut de France on the same day
(CG VII p. 707 n. 1). A friend accompanied him, as he wrote to Prosper Sain d’Arod, a
friend in Grenoble (CG no. 3371, 13 August according
to CG VII p. 707, though the letter bears the date 11 August):

I am still in more or less the same condition, but I will be
leaving for Grenoble tomorrow evening and will stay at Charéar’s with a friend
who is accompanying me without whose help I cannot stand up. I cannot do without
him. I do not know where the town hall is and I imagine Charéar will let me
know […] Farewell, I am leaving tomorrow evening.

Berlioz returned to Paris on the evening of
the 16th, exhausted. In a letter of 21 August to a Russian friend, Vladimir
Vasilievitch Stasov, he tells him about the
trip (CG no. 3373):

I am back from Grenoble where I was more or less dragged by
force to preside over a sort of choral festival and attend the inauguration of a
statue of the Emperor Napoleon I. There was drinking, eating and merry-making
and I was still ill, they came to fetch me in a carriage, toasts were made to
which I did not know what to reply. The mayor of Grenoble lavished gifts on me
and presented me with a crown, but I had to stay for a whole hour at the
start of the banquet. The day after I left; I arrived exhausted at 11 o’clock
at night. I am at the end of my tether. […]

An excerpt of a report signed by Mathieu de Monter published in
the Revue et Gazette musicale of 23 August 1868 describes the same event
thus:

Hector Berlioz had agreed to be honorary president. His appearance
at the banquet stirred deep emotion and enthusiastic applause. A gold crown was
placed by the mayor of Grenoble on the head of the master, who nowadays no
longer has any detractors and though still alive belongs already to the
immortals. A violent storm which broke out suddenly and swept through the
flowers and lights of the banqueting hall gave a somewhat fantastic character to
this truly imposing episode of the festival, which takes its rightful place in
the annals of contemporary artistic history.

Daniel Bernard, who published the first collection of Berlioz’s
correspondence just ten years after his death, recalls the same events in the
preface to the book:

Some time after his fall on the rocks [in Nice], he was
invited to a choral festival which was given in his native province, in
Grenoble. This last episode does recall the ending of Shakespeare’s plays,
and the man who had best understood the genius of the English poet was to have
an end rather similar to that of King Lear, Macbeth or Othello. To do justice
to this final scene history would need to borrow the colours of drama. Imagine
a hall glittering with lights, decorated with official wall coverings, a table
loaded with delicate dishes, a gathering of joyful guests awaiting the arrival
of one of them who was slow to come. Suddenly a curtain is drawn and a ghost
appears: not the spectre of Banquo, but a skeletal Berlioz, his face pale
and thin, with a blank look in his eyes, his head shaking, and his lips tight
with a bitter smile. People gather around him and shake his hands – those
trembling hands which guided armies of musicians to victory. An assistant
places a crown on the old man’s white hair, who contemplates in astonishment
the friends and compatriots who are lavishing their belated yet sincere
tributes on him. He is congratulated but does not seem aware of anything. He
rises mechanically to reply to words he has not understood. At that moment a
furious gust of wind rushing from the Alps into the hall lifts the curtains
and extinguishes the candles. Outside the wind rages and lightning tears
through the sky, illuminating the silent and terrified bystanders with an
eerie light. In the middle of the storm Berlioz has remained standing. Enveloped
in a glow he is like the genius of symphony, for whom the powers of nature are
providing an apotheosis, in a setting of mountains and assisted by gigantic music of thunder.

Julien Tiersot, a great admirer of Berlioz, writing 35
years after the event, confuses the dates and sequence of events somewhat – he was a young boy at the
time of Berlioz’s 1868 visit to Grenoble and on
his own admission did not witness the ceremony itself;
rather he cites published sources – Daniel Bernard (above) and Ernest Reyer’s article in Notes de
Musique (no date, p. 268) which is itself based on Reyer’s earlier
article in the Journal des
Débats
of 31 March 1869:

The time was August 1868. Berlioz was invited to preside over
a musical competition in Grenoble; he was beginning to receive at last the
tributes of his compatriots which could be mistaken for enthusiasm. But the old
fighter, broken by physical as much as moral pain, was no more than a shadow of
himself.

Quantum mutatus ab illoHectore!…

By a rather strange coincidence, I had for the first time in
my life come to Grenoble the day when Berlioz was there for the last time. I
could have seen him. The last page of Berlioz’s Mémoires has the
following words: « I have to console myself for not having known Virgil,
whom I would have loved so much, or Gluck, or Beethoven, or Shakespeare… who
perhaps would have loved me… The truth is that I cannot console myself… »
Should I make this confession? At my age I had not yet heard the mention of
Berlioz’s name; I was deeply ignorant of his existence. I therefore did not
try to be on his way, and I never saw him. The truth is that I cannot console
myself… But one notable feature of that day has remained very vivid in my
mind: the terrible hurricane which fell on the city in the evening, one of these
powerful mountain storms which come down from the upper valleys and sweep
everything on their way. On the squares decorated for the festival the hangings
were overturned, the poles uprooted, the flags that decorated the houses, torn
by the violence of the wind, blazed with the lightning and hovered in the air
above the crowds with their dark flashes.

It was the time of the banquet. The master had dragged
himself there with great effort. Toasts were made in his honour and a gold crown
placed on his head; he was standing up and muttering some words of thanks.
Suddenly the windows were thrown open by the violence of the wind; the lights
quivered and went out. He remained standing, his crown on his head, like a
Shakespearean apparition, resembling King Lear on the moor… « He was
like the genius of symphony, writes a biographer [Daniel Bernard], for whom the
power of nature is providing an apotheosis, in a setting of mountains and with
the help of the gigantic music of thunder. »

The next day, August 15, Napoleon’s statue was inaugurated
on one of the city’s squares. But he was anxious to escape from the crowds: he
took the way of the village where the Stella montis lived, and made a
final visit to her. « This last visit and this last meeting were also his
last emotion », according to Ernest Reyer, his confidant in his final
days.
[…]

These were the circumstances in which the child of Dauphiné,
who had once been damned through fear of the discredit he would bring on the
name of Berlioz, returned to his native land, in an apotheosis which neither he
nor any of his friends had ever dared to hope for.

(Julien Tiersot, 1904, pp. 41-42)

As Berlioz writes in the letter to Stasov quoted above, he did attend the inauguration
of the statue but, as his silence implies, it
seems that he did not go to see Madame Estelle Fornier, who at the time no longer lived in Meylan but at St
Symphorien, a considerable distance from Grenoble. It
is true that Ernest Reyer, a close friend who knew Berlioz well, stated in an obituary
notice on the composer, published in the Journal des Débats of 31 March
1869 (p. 3), that Berlioz made a quick visit to see Estelle Fornier on his way
back from Grenoble to Paris. Though not impossible this raises practical and chronological
problems, and whether such a visit did take place must probably remain an open
question (see note below).

Statue of Napoleon

The bronze statue of Napoleon was made by Emmanuel
Frémiet, commisioned by Napoleon
III, and was
erected in Grenoble on the Place d’Armes (later renamed Place de Verdun). But the
statue was dismantled during the war of 1870 [on 4
September*], at the time of
the fall of the Second Empire, and placed in storage, first in Grenoble, later in Paris.
World War I revived the cult of Napoleon I, and the Isère Department and
Paris started to argue about the statue, both wanting to own it. Grenoble
eventually won the argument and in 1929 was given permission to set up the
statue at Laffrey in the so-called ‘Prairie de la Rencontre’ or ‘Field of
the Encounter’ on the shore of
the lake. The new location had historical connections with Napoleon, involving his
encounter with Louis XVIII’s soldiers on 7 March 1815 in the village of
Laffrey; the encounter ended by the soldiers amicably laying
down their arms and joining him. The restored statue was officially inaugurated
for the second time on 31 August 1930 (source: Mairie
de Laffrey).

* We are grateful to M. Eric Lombard for
the exact date of the removal of the statue of Napoleon.

The text on the back of the postcard reads: Monument élevé à
Laffrey, pour
commémorer la rencontre, le 7 mars 1815, de l’Empereur retour de l’Ile d’Elbe
et des troupes royales envoyées pour l’arrêter et qui firent leur
jonction avec les soldats de Napoléon [Monument set up at Laffrey to
commemorate the meeting on 7 March 1815 of the Emperor returning from the island
of Elba with the royal troops that had been sent to arrest him but joined up
with the soldiers of Napoleon]

The text on the front of this
card is a quote from Napoleon when he encountered the soldiers: Soldats Je suis votre empereur, ne me reconnaissez-vous pas ? S’il en est un parmi
vous qui veuille tuer son général Me voilà ! [Soldiers, I am
your Emperor, do you not recognise me? If there is anyone among you who wishes
to kill his general, Here I am!]

* Note: Although Ernest Reyer stated as a fact that Berlioz
made a visit to Estelle
Fornier after leaving Grenoble and before returning to Paris, this statement,
though not impossible, raises chronological and practical difficulties.

1. According to CG no. 3370
(dated 7 August) Berlioz intended to be in Grenoble on the morning of the 15th.
According to CG no. 3371 (13 August according
to CG VII p. 707, though the letter bears the date 11 August) he was
planning to leave in the evening the day after. In any case he was still in Paris on the
14th, since he signed the book of attendance at the Institut on that day. It seems
doubtful that he could have arrived that same evening in Grenoble; more probably
he arrived the next day after an overnight journey.

2. Tiersot dates the banquet attended
by Berlioz to the 14th and the inauguration to the following day, 15 August.
This is incorrect: both events took place on the same day, 15 August. In any
case, it seems unlikely Berlioz could have travelled from Paris on the 14th and
arrived in time for a banquet in Grenoble in the evening.

3. The letter to Stasov (CG
no. 3373) implies that Berlioz attended both the
inauguration of the statue and the banquet which celebrated the choral
competition, and nothing proves that he did not attend the inauguration of the
statue. A letter to his old friend Albert Du Boys written in Grenoble during his
stay (CG no. 3372) refers to the ‘roars of these military bands’
which ‘aggravate his discomfort’, and this reads like an allusion to the
military music which will have accompanied the inauguration of the statue. This
was therefore a busy and stressful day for an old man in poor health, who said
he was unable to travel without the help of a friend, unfortunately not named (CG
no. 3371),
and who in Grenoble refused the invitation from an old friend, Albert Du Boys (CG
no. 3372). A trip from Grenoble to St Symphorien on the 15th seems out of the
question.

4. Since Berlioz left the day after
for Paris and arrived late in the evening of the same day (CG no. 3373)
a rapid visit on the way to St Symphorien followed by a very short meeting with
Estelle Fornier, though not impossible, seems also impractical in the
circumstances (presumably the friend who accompanied him on his journey would
have gone there as well).

5. In his last two known letters to
Estelle Fornier (CG nos. 3363, 14 June; 3369, 31 July) Berlioz does not
mention any plans to go and see her, though the possibility of a visit to
Grenoble was known to Berlioz as early as April (CG no. 3353).
It seems very unlikely that Berlioz would have ventured to make an impromptu visit
to Estelle Fornier
without asking her permission in advance, and no evidence survives of such an
approach. One may also wonder whether Berlioz would have wanted to confront
Estelle Fornier with the spectacle of his own pitiful condition.

The Hector Berlioz Website was created by Monir Tayeb and Michel
Austin on 18 July 1997;Berlioz in Grenoble page created on 11 December 2008; this
page updated on 6 December 2009.

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